Speculation simmered yesterday over a possible trip by Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi to North Korea to resolve a feud over kidnapped Japanese, but officials said more groundwork was needed before any visit could be made.
A breakthrough in the dispute over the abductees, an emotive topic in Japan, would clear the way for talks on establishing diplomatic ties between the two countries and would be a political coup for Koizumi ahead of a July Upper House election.
"A visit by the prime minister is our best card. I hope any decision on it will be made carefully," said ruling Liberal Democratic Party Secretary General Shinzo Abe.
"It's important that there's a clear outlook that the abduction issue will be solved," he told a news conference.
Koizumi's popularity ratings shot up after he met Kim Jong-il in September 2002, when the North Korean leader admitted to the kidnapping of 13 Japanese in the 1970s and 1980s to help train spies.
Five of those abductees came home to Japan, a quarter century after being snatched away. But they had to leave behind their North Korean-born children -- now teenagers and adults -- and one American spouse. Pyongyang has said the other eight had died from illness, accidents or suicide.
Chief Cabinet Secretary Hiro-yuki Hosoda told a separate news conference that several issues needed to be sorted out before Koi-zumi could travel to Pyongyang to meet North Korean leader Kim Jong-il in what would be the second summit between the two.
"Please think of it as a completely clean slate," Hosoda told reporters when asked about reports that North Korea had proposed a Koizumi visit at last week's bilateral talks.
Koizumi was also coy. "Media reports seem to be saying various things but there is nothing I can say at this point," Kyodo news agency quoted him as telling reporters.
On Sunday, the Nihon Keizai business newspaper said the premier had told Foreign Ministry officials to start preparations for a possible trip to Pyongyang.
The Nihon Keizai said Koizumi could make a visit once Pyongyang promised that family members of Japanese abductees who are still in the North could be reunited with relatives in Japan.
In return, Tokyo would provide humanitarian aid for the North's struggling economy, the paper added.
Top spokesman Hosoda noted, however, that besides bilateral issues, the thorny matter of North Korea's nuclear programme had yet to be solved.
Delegates from the two Ko-reas, China, Japan, Russia and the US are to meet in Beijing tomorrow for working level talks on the nuclear standoff. Two-way talks between North Korean and Japanese officials could take place on the sidelines.
Families of the returned abductees want Koizumi to make the trip and bring their relatives home, but those whose loved ones are said to be dead or missing worry that this might close the door to finding out the truth about their fates, Japanese media said.
Besides the seven North Korean-born children, Japan also wants the husband of one abductee, Charles Jenkins, a US soldier said by Washington to have defected to the North, to be allowed to join his wife in Japan.
Yemen’s separatist leader has vowed to keep working for an independent state in the country’s south, in his first social media post since he disappeared earlier this month after his group briefly seized swathes of territory. Aidarous al-Zubaidi’s United Arab Emirates (UAE)-backed Southern Transitional Council (STC) forces last month captured two Yemeni provinces in an offensive that was rolled back by Saudi strikes and Riyadh’s allied forces on the ground. Al-Zubaidi then disappeared after he failed to board a flight to Riyadh for talks earlier this month, with Saudi Arabia accusing him of fleeing to Abu Dhabi, while supporters insisted he was
The Chinese Embassy in Manila yesterday said it has filed a diplomatic protest against a Philippine Coast Guard spokesman over a social media post that included cartoonish images of Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平). Philippine Coast Guard spokesman Jay Tarriela and an embassy official had been trading barbs since last week over issues concerning the disputed South China Sea. The crucial waterway, which Beijing claims historic rights to despite an international ruling that its assertion has no legal basis, has been the site of repeated clashes between Chinese and Philippine vessels. Tarriela’s Facebook post on Wednesday included a photo of him giving a
‘MOBILIZED’: While protesters countered ICE agents, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz activated the state’s National Guard to ‘support the rights of Minnesotans’ to assemble Hundreds of counterprotesters drowned out a far-right activist’s attempt to hold a small rally in support of US President Donald Trump’s latest immigration crackdown in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on Saturday, as the governor’s office announced that National Guard troops were mobilized and ready to assist law enforcement, although not yet deployed to city streets. There have been protests every day since the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) ramped up immigration enforcement in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and Saint Paul by bringing in more than 2,000 federal officers. Conservative influencer Jake Lang organized an anti-Islam, anti-Somali and pro-US Immigration and Customs Enforcement
NASA on Saturday rolled out its towering Space Launch System (SLS) rocket and Orion spacecraft as it began preparations for its first crewed mission to the Moon in more than 50 years. The maneuver, which takes up to 12 hours, would allow the US space agency to begin a string of tests for the Artemis 2 mission, which could blast off as early as Feb. 6. The immense orange and white SLS rocket, and the Orion vessel were slowly wheeled out of the Vehicle Assembly Building at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, and painstakingly moved 6.5km to Launch Pad 39B. If the
RSS